Thomas Howe

Legal Systems Very Different From Our OwnProf. David
FriedmanMay 18, 2006

Introduction

The Ottoman Empire’s birth
is properly dated in 1453, the year the Ottomans took Constantinople (the
conquest). Prior to this, the Ottomans were a principality surviving in the
fluctuating border regions of more powerful Islamic states and the Byzantines.
The term “Ottoman” does not describe an ethnic or racial group.
Instead it most properly applies to the final version of the evolving governing
class of the Oguz Turks, a nomadic people whose origins are in Central Asia. As
this branch of the Turkish family fled from Mongol pressure in Central Asia to
the Caucuses and Asia Minor, it adopted Islam and learned statecraft from the
predecessor Islamic groups and Byzantium, the leading bureaucratic state of the
West.

Originally, the
Oguz Turks had two classes, the warriors and the subjects. The subjects were
peasants. The vast majority of these were Muslims, Christians or Jews. But as
the Ottomans successfully expanded their territory under the same crusading
expansionist spirit the characterized Islam’s early history, the ruling
class lost its ethnic identity. Though, critically, it strictly maintained its
cultural characteristics. The true Ottoman ruling class was defined by
essential cultural commonalities. These commonalities were Islam, mastery of
the Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages and literatures, extensive education
either at home, the medrese schools or
in the Palace school in Istanbul and career membership in the massive
bureaucratic/military structure set up to rule, expand and maintain the empire.
Ethnic origin mattered little, and many Sultans were the sons of female slaves
from conquered or client lands.[1]

After the conquest of
Constantinople, the more successful Ottoman Sultans were seen as consolidators
of the central power through expanding and refining the bureaucracy. This was
done for several reasons. First, it allowed the Sultan more control over
ethnically, religiously and geographically diverse lands and peoples by
expanding the government’s ability to keep records and thus tax these
groups. Second, an active and expansionist government gave the ruling class the
ability to react to the diverse influences that were constantly influencing
Ottoman society. These influences included the Turks Asiatic Steppe origins,
the different legalist school and threads of Islam (the Ottomans largely
followed the Hanafi school),[2] the neo-Platonic
philosophies of conquered Greeks, the high artistic culture and literature of
Persia, the rise of Western Europe and the need to maintain cultural identity
while also being a nexus of world trade. The Ottomans formed their empire in a
rich and fluid part of the world and they had contact with nearly all the major
cultures of the old world.

During the consolidation phases
that followed the establishment of Empire, the ruling class split into three
distinct parts: the military administrators, the judiciary, and the bureaucratic
civil administration.[3] These three groups were
nominally independent in terms of recruitment, education and career tracks, but
since they were all under the sultan, moves between branches were made as
needed.[4] The defining characteristic of the
Ottomans was not their people or unique culture, but their government. The
Ottoman government was set up to run a massive empire made up a multitude of
peoples whose cultures sharply contrasted. To adapt to this, the Ottomans set
up a poly-legal system in which a person’s religion and gender determined
what legal rights and obligations they had, both to their fellow subjects and to
the state. The Ottomans greatest innovations came not in invention, but in
incorporation of the strengths they were exposed to while balancing their own
cultural norms and those of their subjects. Ottoman greatness was embodied in
their ability to balance innovation and the status quo – largely through
their legal system, which tolerated and encouraged very high levels of
self-government.

The telodic function of the
Ottoman government was to wage holy war against infidels, maintain a domestic
status quo and collect taxes. The Ottomans felt that these purposes reflected
what they called ‘the circle of equity.’ The circle is a political
concept that states,

These statements were usually
written around the circumference of a circle, showing how the eighth statement
led directly back to the first.[6] The basis of
this political reasoning rested on the division of society into the ruling
Ottoman class and the subject under classes. The Ottomans sought to maintain
this relationship by working out agreements with their subjects which would
result in the under classes largely ruling themselves. To this end, the
Ottomans dealt with both geographic and cultural diversity within their empire
by expecting their subjects to self regulate. One Ottoman technique was
empowering and encouraging their subjects to convert to Islam and thus join the
community of Muslims (umma) or to
accept certain conditions in exchange for recognition and protection by the
state.[7]

The
Ottoman Government – A Model Bureaucracy

The Ottoman
bureaucracy, following the models of earlier Islamic states, expected the
subject non-Muslim communities to deal with their own internal affairs and
deliver on their tax obligations. These groups were called
millets and had powers of taxation and
collective representation before the Ottoman
state.[8] Very often the groups were allowed to
choose their leaders and were largely divided up by civic units for tax and
judicial purposes.[9] In order for a group to be
granted millet status, it had to
convince the bureaucracy of certain threshold issues. First, the group had to
establish itself as a cohesive religious community rooted in
history.[10] Innovation was frowned upon.
Second, it had to nominate leadership that would be responsible for taxes and
communication to the Ottomans. Third, the group had to accept the Pact of
Umar.

The Pact of
Umar is a series of promises and obligations between Islamic states and their
non-Muslim citizens and reflects the evolution of Islam and its relation to its
sister monotheistic religions. To fully understand this document, a basic
understanding of the history of the expansion of Islam is needed.
Mohammed’s Arabs were conquerors. Between 632 C.E. and 750 C.E. the
Muslims reached the borders of France and
China.[11] This put them in political control
of millions of non-Muslims. Since the Koran taught tolerance for fellow
monotheistic religions (Jews and Christians, or “People of the
Book”), but vacillated on just how that tolerance was to manifest, early
Arab conquers combined both the teaches of Islam with the realities that they
found themselves in. Historically, most non-Muslim groups in Muslim lands
became marginalized as peoples inevitably converted to Islam for social and
economic reasons.[12]

This
marginalization of minorities was balanced by the tolerance taught by the Koran
and eventually distilled into the Pact of
Umar.[13] Muslim tradition states that the
Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (634-44) issued the pact to the Christians of
Jerusalem, or alternatively Syria as a whole, following its fall to the Muslim
armies.[14] Although Western scholars have
ascribed the formulation to the Umayyad caliph, Umar II (717-20), it may be that
the its final formulation is a composite of many different agreements between
Muslims and non-Muslims.[15] In its earliest
and most basic formulations, the pact stipulated that in return for the
Muslims’ pledges of safe-conduct for their persons and property and of
non-interference in any internal autonomy the non-Muslims would agree to the
following:

1.) They
would be subject to the political authority of Islam.

2.) They
would not speak of the Prophet Muhammad, his Book, or his faith.

3.) They
would refrain from committing fornication with Muslim women.

a. This
was extended to include marriage between non-Muslim men and Muslim women.

b. Marriage
between Muslim men and non-Muslim women was allowed, following the
Prophet’s example, as long as the children were brought up as Muslims.

c. But
non-Muslim wives of Muslim men were free to worship according to their own
faith.

4.) Non-Muslims
were forbidden to sell or give a Muslim anything that was in violation of
Islamic law, i.e. carrion, pork, or alcohol.

5.) The
display of crosses or ringing of bells in public was not permitted, nor any
public proclamation of “polytheistic” belief to a Muslim. This
included references to the Trinity.

6.) No
new churches or synagogues could be built.

7.) Non-Muslims
must wear the girdle over their cloaks and were to differentiate themselves from
Muslims by their headgear, mounts, and saddles.

a. This
was expanded later to prohibit non-Muslims from riding either horses or camels,
limiting them to mules and donkeys.

b. Often
local variations took root. In Aleppo non-Muslims were to wear red shoes. In
other cities, there were to wear only blue or black clothing.

c. Everywhere,
non-Muslims were to refrain for using green, the prophet’s color.

8.) No
non-Muslims could hold a Muslim as a slave.

9.) No
public religious processions, such as those traditionally held at Easter, were
to be allowed.

10.) Non-Muslim
communities agree to pay the jizya, or
head tax on every non-Muslim male in Muslim
lands.[16]

The pact stipulated that if a
group faithfully followed its strictures, the state would largely not interfere
in their internal administration. As such, decisions made by the leadership of
the non-Muslim religious communities in regards to personal status law or
contracts unless all parties agreed to Muslim
adjudication.[17] While the pact allows
non-Muslims to retain their own customary practices in regards to personal
status law, it established a public disdain for those practices in the eyes of
the Muslim legal scholars and kadis and, by extension, the
state.[18] Critically, “it established
the primacy of the Muslim population over the non-Muslims in any public space
the communities might share. The call to prayer might disturb a
non-Muslim’s slumber, but the ringing of the church bells or the chants of
the non-believers should not inconvenience a
Muslim.”[19] Additionally, Non-Muslims
had to pay the jizya, but the amount
assessed in the Ottoman period was usually more symbolic than onerous because
the tax was calculated on the man’s ability to
pay.[20] Under the pact the Ottoman’s
allowed millets to establish and
maintain their own, internal legal structures. This respect for minority group
autonomy was so great that kadis and local officials would routinely enforce the
orders of millet courts.

Only when all
parties agreed or when one of the parties was Muslim, would legal issues be
heard before a kadi. Non-Muslims had difficulty achieving justice there,
however, because of the high evidentiary burden sharia places on those making
claims against Muslims. In 18th
Century Aleppo, a Christian chronicler described the murder of a Christian
merchant.[21] A Muslim contract worker
approached the merchant and asked for work.[22]
The Christian merchant said that he had none to offer and the Muslim contractor
pulled his dagger and killed the merchant.[23]
Since there were only Christian witnesses, no charges against the murderer were
brought.[24] This violated the standard
evidentiary burden outlined in sharia that required two adult male Muslims as
witness against a Muslim on a murder charge.

Minority groups
would use the Ottoman court system to enforce their own internal decisions.
Records abound of the Patriarchs of Constantinople condemning corrupt or heretic
priests.[25] Local kadis or the central
government, satisfied that the dissidents were properly tried under the rules of
their group, would then enforce the groups
ruling.[26] Enforcement by the Ottomans of
religious minority decisions ran the gamut of removal from office to executing
those condemned by their own groups.[27]

Some groups
prevented their members from using the Ottoman court system. A resident English
consulate in Aleppo claimed that the rabbis of his city “had issued
injunctions forbidding any of their community from bearing testimony against
another Jew in the Muslim courts.”[28]
This does, however, contrast with the Jewish population of Jerusalem and
Damascus, which used the Muslim courts often to resolve their internal
conflicts.[29]

Ottoman Sources of Law – Sharia and Kanun

The Ottomans, being good
Muslims, took the sharia as the basis of their jurisprudence. The Ottomans,
being good Turks, also relied heavily on their ancestral practices, which
sustained them before Islam and helped them to gain their empire. Being good
administrators as well, the Ottomans adopted, merged, or even sometimes ignored
these precedents over the course of their empire. At its origins, Sharia
gives rules for running a community of like believers. The Ottomans, however,
ruled a massive empire of diverse communities, thus they built upon and adapted
the religious law. Ottoman secular law was steeped in their nomadic Turkish
origins. When Mehmed II was consolidating the empire after his conquest of
Constantinople, he issued a Kanunname.
This ‘dynastic law’ was a codification of customary practice with
commentary and instructions for his successor on how to rule in the
“Ottoman Way.”[30] “That
portion of the Conqueror’s institutes dealing with the structure of the
central government ... which formed the effective constitution of the Empire,
was thus a mixture of description of actual practice, acknowledgment of
precedent, and prescription emanating from the ruler’s discretionary
authority, all given canonical
force.”[31] “Kanum was an
accretive and, within limits, mutable phenomenon. The institutes of the
‘founding father’ were to be binding on his descendants, for they
expressed the dynastic mandate. But Mehmed also enjoined his successors to
amend usage as necessary. Kanun was not to be changed willfully, however, but
only in accordance with the spirit of impersonal justice and dynastic honor that
informed the primal promulgation.”[32]Kanun not only regulated the structure
of the Ottoman government, but also “dealt with general matters of
provincial military organization, penal justice, taxation, and the position of
certain minorities within the
Empire.”[33]

The Ottomans did not use the
laws of their conquered subjects for their own internal purposes (aside from
adopting many Byzantine and Persian governing practices), however, they did
carry out the court decisions of the
millets and allowed minorities access
to both substantive Ottoman law and court procedures when appealing
millet decisions. While
Christians and Jews “appeared frequently in the Muslim courts in the
Arabic-speaking provinces and apparently showed no hesitancy to press cases
involving breach of contract against Muslims, the recorders of their testimonies
have left semiotic evidence it was not on the basis of
equality.”[34] Individual Christians and
Jews were always identified by their religion when entered into the records, an
indication that the court scribes considered “Muslim” to be the norm
and unnecessary for notation.[35] Non-Muslim
men were further set apart from Muslims by the scribes in both Aleppo and
Damascus who recorded their patronymic as “walad,” for example,
Jirjis walad Tuma (George son of Thomas), as opposed to the “ibn”
reserved for Muslims.[36] This makes sense in
light of the hierarchies that exist in Islam, between men and women, believers
and non-believers, saints and sinners.

The testimony of a non-Muslim
was accepted in court with the swearing of the appropriate oath, on either the
Torah or the Gospels. Despite the Koranic injunction that the testimony of two
non-Muslim males, or two Muslim women for that matter, was required to equal
that of one Muslim male, non-Muslims and women testified against Muslim males on
an equal basis.[37] There was a difference,
however, between the two classes of witnesses. Women of whatever faith were
generally required to present two male witnesses as to their identity, while
non-Muslim males were accepted on their own
assurances.[38] The physical descriptions of
non-Muslim males were sometimes recorded as an apparent identity check, however,
as was often the case for slaves.[39] Such
physical descriptions were rarely, if ever, added in the case of free Muslim
males.[40] Despite such hints of possible
discrimination, “at least in the eyes of the recording secretary,
non-Muslim men and women were frequent visitors to the Muslim
courts.”[41] But, “as non-Muslims
often relied on Muslim witnesses to win their civil cases against Muslims, we
can assume that they understood the efficacy of having Muslim testimony to sway
a Muslim judge to their side.”[42]

The Ottoman poly-legal system
was a balance of criminal and torts actions. The Ottomans carried out the
sharia. They also allowed the millits
to carry out their own law. If there was a choice of law, the choice would
inevitably be to follow Ottoman law. In the Ottoman system, claims were heard
before a kadi, who applied the Ottoman understanding of their own and the
minority laws.

The
Tort and Criminal Law Split The Ottomans did not have split between
tort and criminal structures, per se. Instead, they followed the practice of
Muslim states before them who were strongly influenced by the
sharia. Under the Ottomans issues
between an aggrieved party and the defendant were heard before the officially
recognized state courts or the state sanctioned
millet courts. In Ottoman
jurisprudence, the difference between causes of actions was the type of penalty
possible for the complaint. The sharia
contained different categories of offenses: those to which are affixed a
specified punishment (hadd); those for
which the punishment is at the judge’s discretion
(ta’zir); those offenses in which
a form of retaliatory action or blood money is inflicted against the perpetrator
or his kinsman by the victim’s kinsmen
(jinayat); offenses against the public
policy of the state, involving administrative penalties
(siyasa); and those offenses that are
corrected by acts of personal penance
(kaffara).[43]
The Ottomans, unlike other Muslim states, handled
siyasa offenses through state courts.
Unlike other Muslim states, the Ottomans only had a single court system
administered by kadis trained and paid
by the state. While the Ottomans did distinguish between Koranic law and
government issued administrative law
(kanun), these issues were all heard by
the same kadi administered courts. The
Ottomans were sure to control the
medresse and thus quality of the
kadis produced. The products of
Ottoman judicial education were well versed in both
sharia and
kanum and were expected to rule on both
as need be. This was especially clear in areas of law that touched both, like
taxation.

For the
Ottomans taxation was a major governmental and political concern but it was also
one with strong religious overtones. The Pact of Umar required non-Muslim adult
males to pay a head tax (jizya). The
tax was determined in many different ways. However, part of the Ottoman
obsession with justice and governance meant that the tax not especially onerous.
Additionally the Ottomans were able enough administrators to know that crushing
the populace with taxes was not a sustainable practice. They were such good
taxmen, that when the Spanish expelled the Jews following the
Reconquista, the Ottomans welcomed the
Sephardic Jews because they recognized a chance for income creation through the
addition of talented new taxable subjects.[44]

The
jizya was taxed to the local
millet. Since the Ottomans usually
only recognized the three major millets
of the Greek Orthodox, the Armenians and the Jews, the different communities in
them needed to agree on the appropriate proportions. This reflected the Ottoman
belief that the millets should be self governing, but in order to aide the
collection of taxes, the Ottomans would conduct population surveys and would
enforce the agreements of the local millets. In the end, the Ottomans did not
care how the division was made as long as the taxes were paid. In the mid-1600s
to the mid-1700s there are a series of court cases recorded in Aleppo that refer
to extensive inter-Christian litigation over the fair share of the tax
burden.[45] The litigation revolved around the
determination of the appropriate taxation method in the facing of changing
demographics. In 1754, the Greek Orthodox were required to pay 46.7 percent of
the total levied against the Christians; the Maronites 23.3 percent; the
Armenians and Jacobites, each 15 percent. Two years later the communities came
back and argued for the following distribution: Rum, 42.5 percent, Maronites
31.5 percent, Armenians 16 percent, Jacobites 10
percent.[46] The communities decided this was
the fairest distribution based on ability to pay. The kadis, tired of
litigation, ruled the subsequent year that tax on Christians would be determined
to each church on a basis of their numbers of
membership.[47] In contrast the Jews of the
Aleppo simply choose to be taxed as one group and thus jointly shared the
liability for the jizya assessed to
them.[48]

The Ottomans taxed foreigners
differently. Since they were not ruled by the Ottomans there were not subject
to the
jizya.[49]
However, since they were not Ottoman subjects, the Ottomans only suffered their
presence on Ottoman terms.[50] Following the
standard Ottoman model, a foreigner’s status was determined by his group
membership. In the case of foreigners, that group status was determined solely
by the foreigner’s country of origin and the current relationship enjoyed
by that state with the Ottomans.[51] These
trading agreements (capitulations) eventually evolved in most favored nation
trading statuses and resembled modern trading
agreements.[52] Besides allowing for trade,
the capitulations would often allow a foreigner to be taxed at the same rate as
a subject Muslim.[53]

Foreign
businessmen and governments needed agents in the Empire however, who had
business connections and, even more importantly, spoke the local dialects
critical for the facilitation of trade.[54]
Always eager to foster taxable activity, the Ottomans eventually allowed the
agents of foreigners to take on the status enjoyed by the
foreigners.[55] This was an extension of the
general Ottoman affiliation based political system, though it was novel in that
it was not based on religious affiliation.

Appeals System

The Ottoman
ideal was true justice via correct application of the
law.[56] Speed was always helpful, but often
just an ideal. If matters were appealed to Istanbul (either through a limited
system of rights to appeal or through direct intersession by the central
government), the bureaucracy would hear issues on Ottoman law or
sharia anew, but issues of millet
(Jewish, Christian or other law) or foreign law (French, Venetian or other law),
would only be reviewed for factual error or jurisdictional
error.[57] This tenet was largely based on the
pact of Umar, which guaranteed minority groups the right to run their internal
affairs. Foreigners received protection largely based on the Ottoman’s
treaty obligations to their home states.[58]

Additionally, all subjects of
the Sultan, whether Muslim or not enjoyed a right of appeal directly to the
central government.[59] This was an ancient
Islamic practice, traced back the first four caliphs who “extended justice
to non-Muslim petitioners, even at the expense of their trusted
lieutenants.”[60]

While most courts had specific
jurisdictions (often geographic, military, market, or community or
millet based), Ottoman subjects did
have some choice of courts.[61] Non-Muslims
could have cases heard in Ottoman courts and in the larger cities, groups could
go to specialized Islamic courts that practiced the different schools of
sharia interpretation. These could all
be appealed, but usually only on the claim that the chosen form of law was
incorrectly applied.[62] Unusually, an appeal
might be won on the basis that the chosen school or form of law did not actually
apply to one group or another.[63]

Guild Regulations

Muslims and non-Muslims worked
together in many of the trade guilds and went as a collective unit to voice
guild concerns before the court, although the names of Muslims were always
listed first in such depositions.[64] If the
guild had partial Muslim membership, the head of the guild was invariably a
Muslim, though his second in command would reflect the majority
population.[65] Not all the guilds were
religiously integrated.[66] But guilds
consisting mostly of Muslims were usually low prestige jobs such as tanners or
porters, the membership of which was typically of tribal origin.

Marriage Law

While marriage
was one method of expression of adulthood for men, marriage was almost the
exclusive route for women. Ottoman girls were married off between their
12th and
14th years and, when widowed, were
encouraged to marry again quickly.[67] New
brides entered the orbit of their husband’s families. Indeed women were
so defined by their new families that most post-pubescent education and domestic
instruction was managed by a woman’s
mother-in-law.[68]

The Ottomans
used an arranged marriage system. This process started when a family decided
that it had a single male who was ready to married. Men were given a great deal
of leeway regarding when to marry but where expected to marry by 30; allowing
for time in military service, advanced education or other career development.
His family would thus start scouting for marriageable girls. His family would
do this by either employing a female member close to the man, usually his mother
or a close female relative or a professional matchmaker as scout for
marriageable girls and women.[69] The scout,
called a viewer
(görücü), usually had an
eye out for marriageable girls ahead of time, and if an especially promising one
was found, a man’s family might pressure him to start thinking about
marriage before she was snatched up by another family. A
görücü would likely
choose from among the girls she saw at the public
baths.[70] If the
görücü was a
professional matchmaker, she likely traded on her access to lots of young
women.[71] The source of this access was
likely the
görücü’s primary
business engagement as a kira
(merchantwoman).[72] Because women
sequestered away in harems were not allowed to leave and were often prevented
from even shopping in the bazaars by jealous husbands, merchant women would come
to them to sell jewelry, bolts of cloth and other domestic
goods.[73] Since these merchantwomen had
access to the harems within their spheres of operation, they were one of the few
people to have a good idea about the looks, qualities and availability of the
women of their districts.[74]

After
identifying potential candidates, that
görücü would arrange for
a viewing.[75] These viewings were very
ritualized and followed a prescribed format. The
görücü would sit with
the girl’s mother or female guardian and exchange pleasantries and also
any articulated requests by the prospective groom in what he wanted in a
bride.[76] Then the candidate(s) would
“come into the room dressed in her best, salute the guest with
handkerchief and, with downcast eyes, hand out dainty coffee cups
(fincans) set in silver containers
(zarfs).[77]
“[The görücü]
would drink the coffee slowly in order to have time for inspection – for
when the coffee was consumed the girl withdrew – and also to keep from
hurting the girl’s feelings by a too hasty
dismissal.[78] Then as soon as the girl left
the room, the elders would get down to
business.[79] Details discussed would include
what the görücü thought
of the girl, the mother describing the “girl’s trousseau, including
jewelry.”[80] The looked over girl would
later consult with her nurses and sisters and immediately report if the
görücü “handed
back their coffee cups too soon or
not.”[81]

After viewing
candidates the görücü
would head back to the man’s family to discuss with him and his guardians
the supposed compatibility of the pair and the advantages to both families
stemming from the union.[82] The girl had two
things to offer: her beauty and her family connections “and a girl’s
plainness could be compensated for by her family’s
influence.”[83] After the reports of the
girls had been given to the man and his parents, the advantages of the potential
arrangements were discussed in a family
council.[84] At these councils the man’s
female relations were expected to do most of the talking and were also expected
to come to a consensus, the male relatives, speaking through the man’s
father, were expected to agree.[85]

Before
proceeding further, the girl’s father needed to give approval. Usually,
the two families were known to each other and viewings would likely not have
taken place if the women involved thought the match improper in some way. If
the girl’s family did not know much about the man’s, it was expected
and understood that the man’s father would do an extensive check into his
family’s finances and his career and economic
potential.[86] Additionally, the girl’s
family could pull out at any time prior to the marriage ceremony by resorting to
the study of dreams or istihare with
the ambiguous but authoritative pronouncement that, “Our dreams did not
turn out well.”[87]

If the
girl’s family felt that the groom’s family was of the right
character and resources, then a series of family visits
ensued.[88] Representatives of the two
families would then meet to settle the trousseau and dowry and to set dates the
dates of the formal engagement and the legal ceremony to bind the two in
marriage.[89] These were considered social
issues and were thus often settled by the matriarchs of the families. To the
extant that this was an economic decision, it was a decision based on what would
be a fixed amount of worth, one that the men could comment on ahead of
time.[90] The husband’s father would
then call on the bride’s father for a final promise of his daughter
“at the command of God and the
Prophet.”[91] The men would then decide
in whose household the new couple would
live.[92] At its base this was an economic
decision that had far reaching ramifications, not just in terms of the earning
power of the husband but in terms of the domestic contributions of the wife to
the greater family community.[93] Additionally
due account was likely taken of the potential impacts such a move would have on
the husbands career prospects, a critical issue for Ottoman men.
[94]

Once these
agreements were worked out and sworn before God, the husband’s family
would start on the delivery of the dowry.[95]
The Ottomans practiced dowry by dividing it into two
parts.[96] The first, and smaller portion, was
paid before the marriage contract was
signed.[97] Its purpose was to help defray the
cost of the wedding and to contribute to the furnishing of the young
couple’s home.[98] The greater portion
of the dower was the sum the husband contracted to pay his wife in the event
that he divorced her.[99] This sum also came
to her if he died while she was still his
wife.[100] In this way, the bride’s
family was assured that she would be taken care of by either her husband or the
rump of her dower.

Once the small
dower payment was made to defray the costs of the wedding, the husbands mother
and female relations would visit the bride and her female relations bearing red
silk and candy.[101] The red silk would
eventually be made into underwear for the
bride.[102] The candy had a more ceremonial
function however. Most of it was to be shared by the women but a choice piece
would be offered to the bride by her future
mother-in-law.[103] The bride would eat half
of it and return the rest to her mother-in-law to give to the groom to
be.[104] This was a sign of her willingness
to share her life with him.[105] The women
of the bride’s family (including the bride) would then repay the visit
with a social calling to the husband’s
family.[106] If economically feasible, this
ritual would repeat several times, each time with a train of gifts from one
family to the other.[107]

This period was
likely the most functional of the pre-marriage festivities to the institution of
arranged marriages.[108] While the rules
preventing the mixing of genders required that the women only interact with
other women, they also prevented the bride and groom from seeing each other
until their wedding night. Thus, this series of mass female visitation was the
second best way for the couple to gauge each other’s characters by getting
to know their respective families. As in any culture, it was considered
especially fortuitous for the bride and her mother-in-law to get along well
during these initial stages.[109] If the
meetings did not go well, the bride’s family could still claim foreboding
dreams.

While these
visits were on going the fathers would hire the local imam to secure the
permission for the marriage from the local kadi and/or
imam.[110] Permission was based on both the
religious and the secular law on appropriate degrees of familiar separation and
very likely served the important of function of keeping the central bureaucracy
fully informed of who in the powerful families was marrying
whom.[111] When the marriage was approved, a
marriage contract was drawn up.[112]
It’s primary purpose was to record the amount of the
dower.[113] On the wedding day, the imam
would present the contract to both fathers who would sign after the imam first
asked the bride three times if she consented to the
marriage.[114] The husband’s presence
was not required.[115]

The marriage
itself was considered to take place in the weeklong feast that occurred after
the signing of the marriage contract and the finances for the events
secured.[116] This could take years and
often provided an excuse for a girl to mature a little more before she entered
into married life.

The week of
festivities followed a set schedule. On Monday the bride’s trousseau was
processed to her new quarters.[117] This was
followed by a feasting of the bride with her female relatives and by a public
display of the trousseau. Any women could attend the viewing, and it was
considered very important for the bride’s father to suitably impress the
neighborhood women.[118] Additionally, the
bride’s family would spend the evening setting up her new quarters so that
they would be ready for the couple to start their lives together at the end of
the week. [119]

On Tuesday the
bride and her guests went to the public
baths.[120] There the bride would spend
hours being “soaped, pummeled, shampooed, scalded, and perfumed” by
the bath workers.[121] “Her body hair
was removed with depilatory paste in accordance with the Hanafi law on decency
in women.”[122] On Wednesday, the
bride received the groom’s female relatives and family
friends.[123] The day was filled with
socializing and the evening spent applying henna to the bride’s hands,
feet and arms.[124] This was the customary
entrance of the girl into womanhood and then formal good byes by the bride to
her female relations.[125] Even if the bride
and her husband were going to live with her family, she was no longer under the
care of her father’s house, under the marriage contract she was now under
the care and protection of her husband first.

Thursday
morning was the formal preparation of the
bride.[126] At this point her party
consisted of her mother, mother-in-law, close aunts of the couple and her
sisters.[127] After being fully arrayed, she
formally approached her father who, speaking for the men of her family said
farewell to her and gave her the belt of the married women, signifying her
independence from her old family and subjugation to her
husbands.[128] During this time, the groom
and his male relations processed to the bride’s family to claim the
bride.[129] The groom passed through the
bridal party and was allowed a brief moment together with his wife, usually just
enough time to view each other for the first occasion and were then immediately
separated for separate feasting of all the women and all the men
involved.[130] Interestingly, the women did
not wear their veils in his company “on the probably sound assumption that
he did not have eyes for them.”[131]
Later the two groups would go to evening prayers and then the couple would be
left allow to enjoy dinner as their first meal
together.[132] Consummation of the marriage
was expected on this night.[133] A married
aunt or close to the bride would wait outside the bridal chamber all evening, in
case the bride needed to consult an experienced
adult.[134] On Friday both families were
feasted and then guests sent on their way leaving the exhausted couple to start
married life together.[135]

If the bride
had been married before, the feasting and gift giving was minimalized with only
the legal and religious formalities still being strictly
followed.[136] If the girl was marrying into
a polygamous household, the other wives were as a much a part of the wedding
festivities as her mother-in-law, though with lower
rank.[137] The focus was on the young bride
and ensuring that her transition from girlhood to married life went smoothly,
with a great deal of support.[138]

Islam
encouraged widows to remarry quickly. The arranged marriage system worked to
help fulfill that, with the social networks of Ottoman women constantly updating
itself on who was recently widowed and how well off she was left by her husband.
Since her dowry was her property (though she had limits on her ability to
alienate it, beyond simple maintenance of herself and her household), her
economic worth would help to make up for any advancement in years. While
widows’ marriages were still largely arranged by their female relations,
they could count on having more influence, having been married once and knowing
what they wanted in a husband, and having been part of society, they had a sense
of potential men they wanted their family to target.Arranged marriage was
accepted by girls and women as a matter of course – something all women
went through. Though the traditional disadvantages of arranged marriages, that
the couple would discover that their marriage partner was not all they had
imagined, applied to Ottoman arranged marriages. It was not until the advent of
widespread female education and Westernization in general in the late
19th and early
20th centuries that the institution
fell into decline.[139] Arranged marriage
was one of many institutions that fell sharply under attack in the early
20th century and was targeted by
reformers.[140] Women, as well as men, found
it ridiculous that they first met their spouses on the wedding
night.[141] A common reflection by reformers
being that one could examine produce in the market, even consult an expert
before a major purchase, but finding no common sense in the prevention of
examining a spouse before joining in
marriage.[142]

Conservatives
praised the system because not only did it encouraged the remarriage of widows,
but it helped to prevent spinsters as it was the girl’s family, not just
herself, attempting to marry her off.[143]
When marriage was a community effort many more women found themselves married
and ideally cared for.[144]

Polygamy

The Ottomans practiced polygamy.
They followed the standard Islamic limits of four full legal wives, as many
slaves as the husband could support and as many concubines as he
wanted.[145] Sociologists of the empire
believe that polygamy mostly existed at the apex of society, with the wealthy
being the ones best able to afford multiple
wives.[146] The most common reason a man
took a second wife was to procure sons.[147]
Second wives were also often freed slaves. This had certain benefits. First
was that the husband could inspect his bride before he bought, freed and married
her. Secondly, because she had been trained as a slave, she was unlikely to
disturb the first wife’s mastery of the home.

This last benefit was considered
an import one because one method of maintaining domestic harmony in a polygamous
household was for the wives to follow a strict chain of command and the
etiquette that went with it.[148] The lowest
wife was not without rights, however. “According to Ottoman custom, each
wife was supposed to have her husband’s amorous attentions once a week.
If a husband faltered in his attentions to a legal wife, she had the right to
complain and seek divorce.”[149]
Another method of keeping the peace at home was to divide the house into
separate apartments for the different wives or even for the husband to simply
keep a house for each wife, if he was
able.[150]

Divorce

Ottoman divorce was usually
controlled by tenets of the Hanafi Islamic law. In practice, the most common
method of divorce was by repudiation of the wife by the husband. To divorce a
wife, a “husband needed only to pronounce his wife divorced during the
time when she was canonically free from impurity, and then abastain from marital
relations with her for the next three months.... During these three months, he
could change his mind and take her back; otherwise ... the divorce became final
and irrevocable.”[151] A husband could
remarry his ex-wife “only if she first married another man, consummated
the marriage, was divorced by him, and then observed a three month waiting
period.”[152] If the wife turned out
to be pregnant during the three-month waiting period, there could be no divorce
until the child was born.[153] Additionally
any man could simply make a statement of irrevocable
divorce.[154] Hanafi law viewed this as
shameful but legal.[155]

Regardless of
method a man need never state grounds for
divorce.[156] But a woman
did.[157] Ottoman law provided three grounds
on which a wife could sue for divorce.[158]
These were failure to financially provide for the wife, impotence or sexual
neglect and unproven accusations of infidelity made by the husband against the
wife in court.[159] Additionally, Ottoman
courts would allow for divorce by mutual consent, but there was disagreement
among jurists if this meant the wife forfeited her
dowry.[160] A wife’s divorce for cause
kept her dowry in tact.[161] “In
addition, there was the provision that the wife was able to get a divorce by
virtue of her husband’s having delegated his right of divorce to her in
the marriage contract. Such a divorce was known as repudiation by
deputy.”[162] Finally, a woman’s
family could secure a divorce cause for
her.[163]

Men most often
divorced wives for being childless. Infidelity does not seem to be a common
excuse for formal divorce procedures though, because the Ottomans worked so hard
to either keep women locked in the home or, even if she was free to leave the
house, her entire neighborhood and social network was dedicated to preserving
her virture.[164] The neighborhood’s
imam was free to enter homes upon reliable reports that adultery was being
committed inside.[165] As punishment, the
law required stoning for adultery or other kinds of unlawful intercourse
(zina).[166]
Since death removed the need for a formal divorce, this may explain the lack of
formal divorce action on this basis. Even if the state did not operate to
execute the adulterers, a husband had a right to kill his adulterous
wife.[167] Ottoman law did not give her the
same right in return.[168]

ILLNESS AND
DEATH Doctors, midwives and healers of all sorts enjoyed special status in
Ottoman society.[1] Besides the useful
functions they served, healers were seen as users of magic and enjoy perceived
magical power over the world.[170] Foreign
commentators on the Ottomans thought Turkish doctors were appallingly backwards
and inept.[1] This was likely because of
widespread belief in superstition and because, until westernization, Turkish
doctors were trained on Galen and
Avicenna.[1] These foreign commentators
remarked that citizens of the empire constantly asked them for cures and
medicines.[1] This supposedly stemmed from a
wide spread belief that Westerners had an innate understanding of the physical
world.[174] Western doctors still found it
difficult to actually examine female patients,
however.[175] Many complained women would
only consent to be interviewed through a door held
ajar.[176] Especially daring women might
allow their hands, arms and feet to be touched, but only through
gauze.[177]

The Ottomans were also
widespread believers in superstitious folk remedies and magic. These included:
“to pour lead, to extinguish fire, to pour sherbet, to cut spleen, to cut
jaundice, to expunge fear, to singe, to fumigate, to tie a fever ... to go
through some folk rite 40 times, to nail, and to read. In addition, letting and
leaching blood were also customary
remedies.”[178] While most of these
cures had clear pre-Islamic origins, verses from the Koran were often read while
the cures were carried out. Often people from families that had long practiced
these cures carried them out.[179] There was
both a belief in innate family ability and also in the hope that the
practitioner would be brought up in the family
art.[180]

Magic was not limited to
curative ends. A great deal of time and worry was spent on dealing with spirits
and spells. Many illnesses were thought to be caused by the malicious actions
of jinns and
peris (loosely, genies and
fairies).[181] The underlying disease could
either be treated itself or the spirits could be appeased. An Ottoman, thinking
himself prudent, would as often as not follow both courses of treatment. Thus
he would undertake certain magical rituals to appease these
spirits.[182]

Magic was also
used to influence others and protect oneself. “These spells were usually
cast by means of a buyu bohcasi (packet
of charms) which ... ‘is composed of a number on incongruous objects, such
as human bones, hair, charcoal, earth, besides a portion of the intended
victim’s garment, etc., tied up in a
rag.’”[183] The belief in magic
reached the highest levels of power. After the death of the Sultan Abdulmecit,
fifty of these charms were found stuffed into his
sofa.[184]

Influence aside, nothing was
more feared by Ottoman women than the ‘evil eye.’ Its intent is
malicious and its effect is to cause loss of health, life, beauty, affection,
wealth and very young children.[185] The eye
did not require charms, so much as ill intent channeled by a bad expression and
malicious thoughts and comments.[1]
Fumigations and repeating chanting of certain Koranic verses were the preferred
methods of riding oneself from its
effects.[187]

At the end of life, a good
Ottoman was expected to put his or her affairs in order and to put special
emphasis on the study of religion.[188] The
Ottomans believed that as Muslims they would be tested in the afterlife on both
the value of their good works and on their understanding of their
faith.[189]

When a person
did pass, they were buried quickly, in accordance with Islamic
law.[190] This meant massive community
involvement requiring a general neighborhood and family
meeting.[191] At the meeting the community
assured the local imam of the worth of the
individual.[1] Convinced that the person was
a good Muslim, the imam would then led the community in prayers designed to
release the person from their community to
God.[193] The funeral was a chance for acts
of piety by the deceased family as displayed by massive alms
giving.[1] Even if a tomb was built, the
deceased was always buried below ground.[195]

Slavery

The Ottomans practiced slavery.
Initially a steppe people, the Ottomans took slaves as part of the spoils of
war. Many of these slaves were incorporated into the state structure, either as
recruits for the military and bureaucracy or as sources of revenue as the war
captives were sold into slavery in the Empire’s markets.

The Ottomans
also imported slaves. “Long before Istanbul became an Ottoman city, it
was a flourishing way station and market for the Caucasian slave trade.
Throughout the Middle Ages slaves were purchased in the Crimea and the ports of
the Taurus Peninsula for transport to
Mamluk
Egypt.”[196] The Ottomans kept up this
important trade, especially after the empire stopped expanding, which resulted
in a massive decrease in war captives.[197]
The Ottomans in Egypt also purchased Africans of all types and Alexandria was
the main center for the production and training of the black eunuchs that played
important roles in the administration of the Empire’s harems.

Like many of
the institutions the Ottomans inherited from their political forbearers, they
stream lined the institution of slavery and taxed it. The Ottoman government
normally took a fifth of the sale price of the slave as a
tax.[198] This was collected from the
purchaser and was a prerequisite for the issuance of title to the
slave.[199] This title would follow the
slave for life and if she was freed, the title was processed by a local
kadi and reissued to her as proof of
her freedom.[200]

The government
was not the only entity making money off of the slave trade. Professional slave
trainers, often women, would purchase young slaves, spend years training and
educating them and then sold their product at a profit: “Children of from
six to ten years of age are the most sought after by these connoisseurs, who pay
large prices for them in the expectation of receiving perhaps ten times that
amount when the girls are about
seventeen.”[201] Many of these girls
would be sold off to the best families as wives for sons, or as concubines for
the master.[202]

Many slaves
were freed. “If a female slave became pregnant by a member of the
household, she could no longer be sold or given away, for she then had the legal
status of ‘mother of a child,’ and became free at her master’s
death.”[203] Additionally, it was
considered a virtuous act to free slaves, especially Muslim ones. Many well to
do Turks would free some or all of their slaves in their
will.[204] Slaves did not seem capable
purchasing their own freedom. Few slaves had no resources of their own and if
they did there were massive restrictions on the ability of slaves to alienate
them. A slave’s best hope for freedom was virtuous and pleasing service
to the master.

Pressure for
ending slavery came from the west. The British, in particular, objected and
tied a trade concessions and military assistance to clamping down first on the
trade of slaves and then on the existence of the institution
itself.[2] The institution was finally
outlawed in 1908 by western inspired
reformers.[2]

Regulation of Religions

This paper does not focus on the
various tenets of Islam or any other faith practiced in the Ottoman Empire,
though they all provided critical legal foundations for both the religious class
and for the millet systems. But it is
important to address how the Ottomans dealt with and regulated the different
religions in their empire. The Ottomans rightly saw Islam as a method of
controlling the populace because Islam is largely centered on orderly community
living. To that end, the Ottomans “sought to promote a state-sponsored
version of Islam, preached by men who were graduates of state-sponsored
[medresse] and paid salaries from the
sultans’ coffers.”[2]

These men of
religion formed the core of what might be considered the empire’s Muslim
intelligentsia. They were its scientists, historians, and poets, as well as its
legal scholars. Their ethnic and social origins were as diverse as the empire
itself. As such, we might expect them to represent a diversity of outlooks.
But as a social and intellectual class, they held remarkable similar
world-views, undoubtedly molded, as hoped for by the state’s bureaucrats,
by their shared educational experience.[208]

By ensuring that imams,
kadis, and the faculty of
medresse, were all state trained and
appointed, the Ottomans regulated and standardized Islam, in furtherance of
their goal of peace, justice and tax collection.

The Ottoman
approach to apostasy was determined case by case. What was controlling in each
case was the original affiliation of the apostate. It was forbidden for a
Muslim to abandon Islam. If he did, both he and the person who converted him
would be put to death.[209] However, Muslim
peasants could move between different sects of Islam, though a true Ottoman was
a Sunni adherent to the Hanafi school. Though the Ottoman authorities did their
best to control all Islamic institutions by controlling important religious,
legal and educational appointments. Additionally the usual social opprobrium
applied to keep people within the traditions followed by their families.

Conversion to
Islam was encouraged, though, “there is no evidence of wide-scale forced
conversions ... with the possible exception of the
Albanians.”[210] Instead, the Ottomans
provided incentives to convert. Islamization proceeded quickly in Christian
Analtolia as Greek and Armenian Christians accepted the faith of those who held
military and political power.[211] One of
the oldest career paths for men, the military was only open to Muslims, with
important exceptions for some Balkan groups who accepted Ottoman suzerainty. As
such, Christian men embraced Islam as a way of getting into the military and out
of poverty.[212] Christians might also
convert to Islam to take advantage of a quickie divorce. Newly converted men
could simply divorce their wives.[213] Even
Christian women could obtain an easy divorce by converting to Islam, since it
was illegal for a non-Muslim man to be married to a Muslim
woman.[214] The marriage was, in effect,
annulled. Additionally, women would convert in order to “claim a portion
of their fathers’ and/or husbands’
estates.”[215]

Islam also had
its own inherent appeal as a religion:

Islam’s
emotional and spiritual appeal to the sultan’s Christian subjects was
increased by the syncretistic interpretations which were being preached by the
wandering Sufi mendicants who visited the villages of Anatolia and later the
Balkans. Prominent among these were the adherents of the Bektaşi order who
blended elements of Christianity with Islam, retaining a special place for Jesus
and Mary and a fondness for wine while adding reverence for Ali. The retention
of Christian customs by the order must have seemed comforting and familiar to
the region’s Christian peasants, often physically remote from their own
clergy. Confirming this assumption, the strongholds of Bektaşi belief in
the Ottoman lands were found among the Albanians, Pomaks, and Bosnians –
the only Balkan peoples to apostatize in any great numbers – and in the
ranks of the Janissary corps, which was conscripted from the Christian subjects
of the sultans.[216]

The Balkans were the only area
conquered by the Ottomans that did not widely Islamize. The Ottomans may have
had an interest in keeping the Balkans Christian however, as it was the primary
source for the fabled and essential Janissaries Non-Muslims were free to
leave their old traditions for new ones. Christians could join different
Christian sects or become Jews and Jews could become Christians. Complaints to
the Ottoman authorities of group members’ apostatizing largely went
unanswered by qadis who would usually repeat the teaching of Muhammad that
“unbelief is one
group.”[217]

The Ottoman Military and Bureaucracy

In order to enforce their
poly-legal system, the Ottomans developed and deployed a massive military
complex. During the empire, the Ottoman’s armies were successful because
of the superb ability of the Ottomans to organize. Ottoman organizational
talent manifested itself in the military through the Janissary Corps.

The Janissaries
were slaves of the state. The Ottoman system of slave-soldiery had two very
important military advantages. First, because the Ottomans did not have to
advance officers on the basis of their familial wealth or power, a meritocracy
developed. Second, because the military was run through a meritocracy, the
assassination of a leading general was no huge setback as the Ottomans were able
to simply appoint the next best man. The Ottoman’s possession of an
assassination proof military led to no end of frustration for the Empire’s
enemies.[218]

Janissaries were recruited from
Christian populations under the control of the empire. Janissaries were most
commonly levied through a form of human taxation, called the
devşirme, of the children of the
Christian populations in the Balkans and Armenia, and to a much lesser extent,
in Egypt. The Janissaries had a Christian origin because Islam forbade the
enslavement of Muslims.[219]
“Converted to Islam and taught Turkish, the most promising young slaves
were educated for rule in the Imperial Palace....The bulk of such slaves staffed
the Empire’s standing
forces.”[220] “The janissaries
numbered 6,000 toward the end of Mohammed the Conqueror’s reign, close to
8,000 at the beginning of Suleiman’s reign, and 12,000 when he died in
1566. By 1609 the corps has burgeoned to
37,000.”[221]

The bulk of the professional
troops of the empire were cavalrymen known as
timarsiots:

In return for
military service they were granted incomes derived from agricultural tax
revenues collected from the provinces....By granting timars to their cavalrymen,
the Ottoman sultans solved the problem of maintaining a large military force
without huge outlays of cash. Since their economy suffered a chronic shortage
of precious metals, paying their troops with timars rather than with cash
relieved the central state treasury of an enormous burden. An added advantage
of the timar system was that the timariots, in addition to carrying out their
military duties on state campaigns, also performed important functions on the
local level in the provincial
administration.[222]

This seems to be a form of
Western European medieval feudalism, albeit with a much more advanced taxation
and record keeping system. Members of the other two branches of
government were usually free-born Muslims who had access to education either by
being the sons of prominent families able to afford education in the home or in
the medresse system or in the palace
schools. These men then obtained higher education at either the palace or in
the more preeminent medrese
universities in Istanbul, Damascus, Baghdad or Alexandria. Those who would be
become bureaucrats initially transferred from the military (due to their
necessary organizational and record keeping skills) or from the among the more
talented kadi or teaching graduates of the religious
schools.[223] Eventually, training for the
bureaucracy became centralized in the Imperial quarter of Istanbul and
bureaucrats learned though a master/apprentice system, usually while completing
a more generalized religious and literary
education.[224]

The elites of all three groups
were eligible for the very highest positions in the Sultan’s privy council
(divan). The make up of this group changed with the tastes of the ruling
sultan, but it almost always contained at least a Grand Vizier (who functioned
as a prime minister with more or less power depending on the other members of
the cabinet), the Seyhülislam (a chief interpreter of sharia and chief
overseer of the medresse
system),[225] the chancellor (a chief
interpreter of civil law and chief administrative secretary of the cabinet), the
chief treasurer, however many generals, admirals and military judges were needed
to adequately reflect the state of the Empire’s current campaigns and a
chief eunuch who oversaw the palace system and administered to the harem and the
extended royal family. Additionally, the Sultan’s mother always enjoyed a
great deal of access to her son regardless of the independence of his
personality.[226] The presence of the Queen
Mother was usually felt in all cabinet meetings through her proxy, the chief
eunuch.[227]

Like all empires, the influence
of the Sultan would wax and wane depending on the strength of his personality
and those of his ministers.[228] Under a
strong Sultan, the Empire would enjoy great military success as evidenced by the
conquest of Constantinople and the Nile. But the advantage of the bureaucracy
was that the central government could usually weather a bad sultan through the
force of sheer inertia or through the meritorious appointment and advancement of
able administrators. Proof of the Empire’s strength was the ability the
administration to cater to the needs of a massive and diverse imperial populace
– largely the result of a legal system that allowed communities to
self-rule within the limits of Islam.

Conclusion

The Ottomans ran an empire.
Instead of working to assimilate their subjects, the Ottomans instead choose to
coexist with their subjects as long as they remained passive. The Ottomans
strove to maintain their empire and their culture by living up to the standards
of the Circle of Equity and when they did, the Empire was strong and prosperous.
The flaw in their culture wasn’t internal; it was external. Faced with
the rise of Western Europe, the Ottomans only sought to maintain their own
status quo. Able to withstand any internal test, under its poly-legal system,
the Ottoman Empire fell to external influences beyond its control and was
replaced by secularized, pro-Western governments. These governments have not
succeeded nearly as well as the Ottomans in maintaining a diverse and dynamic
populace largely because they forced changed on all groups as opposed to
toleration and allowance for self-government.

[1]
See Fanny Davis, The Ottoman Lady
– A social History From 1718 to 1918 1-33 (1986). Being a black
African, however, relegated a person to the lowest Ottoman social classes. This
was ironclad with a few notable exceptions, such as the black eunuchs who
historically ran the royal household and administered to the royal
harem.

[44]
Masters, supra note vii at p. 52. The
Ottomans knew them to be revenue generators because many of Sephardic Jews spent
time in the Italian republics, learning the cutting edge business and banking
practices of the age. The Ottomans not only welcomed them because of their
expertese and capitol, but also because they provided skills the Ottomans
lacked.

[95]Id. Here, the dowry was a vestige of
the bride-price paid by the nomadic Turks of Central Asia, fortified by the
injunction of Islam. No Muslim marriage was valid without a dowry. (Young,
Corps de droit, II, pp. 212, 219).

[150]Id.
at 91. Polygamy ended with the empire. Having both lost it’s power base
and thus it’s source of wealth, the Turks banned polygamy with the
establishment of the republic. It is still practiced however, in the slums and
the more rural regions, though not commonly, and usually under the radar of the
authorities.

[166]David F. Forte, Studies in Islamic Law
– Classical and Contemporary Application 81 (1999). The Ottomans
allowed some local variations on this rule however. In Istanbul, adulterers
were drowned in the
Bosphorus.